With water it forms the trihydrate, Pb(OAc)2·3H2O, a colourless or white efflorescent monoclinic crystalline substance.

In low concentrations, it formerly served as the principal active ingredient in progressive types of hair colouring dyes.

[6] Lead(II) acetate is also used as a mordant in textile printing and dyeing, and as a drier in paints and varnishes.

[11] The ancient Romans, who had few sweeteners besides honey, would boil must (unfiltered grape juice) in lead pots to produce a reduced sugar syrup called defrutum, concentrated again into sapa.

Legislation prohibiting its use as a wine sweetener was ineffective until decades later, when chemical methods of detecting its presence had been developed.

A toxicological examination of his remains conducted in the mid-20th century confirmed centuries-old rumors that he had been poisoned with lead sugar.

In 1787 painter and biographer Albert Christoph Dies swallowed, by accident, approximately 3/4 ounce (20 g) of lead acetate.

[17][18] In 1887, 38 hunting horses belonging to Captain William Hollwey Steeds were poisoned in their stables at Clonsilla House, Dublin, Ireland.

Captain Steeds, an "extensive commission agent", had previously supplied the horses for the Bray and Greystones Coach.

[24] In the 1850s, Mary Seacole applied lead(II) acetate, among other remedies, against an epidemic of cholera in Panama.